UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES HO CHI MINH CITY THE HAGUE VIETNAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM- THE NETHERLANDS PROJECT ON DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS EXPORTS - THE DETERMINANT OF ECONOMIC GROWTH IN ASEAN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 1986-2001, THE CASE OF VIETNAM A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DECREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS BY HAVANDUNG HO CHI MINH CITY, 2003 CERTIFICATION I certify that the substance of this dissertation has not already been submitted for any degree and is not being currently submitted for any other degrees. I certify that to the best of my knowledge any help received in preparing this dissertation, and all sources used, have been acknowledged in this dissertation. Ha Van Dung Date:. 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my sincere and grateful appreciation to my academic supervisor MA Nguyen Huu Loc for his guiding me during every step in my study, especially during my time of writing thesis.
I would also like to express my grateful thanks to all professors, lecturers in Vietnam - the Netherlands Project, especially Dr. Youdi Schipper, Dr. Gabrielle Berman, and Dr. Karel Jansen for their precious lectures and assistance during the period of writing thesis proposal.
Furthermore, I would like to thank all the staffs of the project, especially the librarian Ms. Dang Kim Chi, and the project secretary Ms. Dinh Anh Nguyet. I would like to express my sincere thanks to all of my classmates in class 8, who have helped me a lots with their encouragements, collaboration, and ideas during my study as well as during the time I do my thesis.
Above all, I am indebted to my grandmother, my parents and my daughters, who have given me a lot of encouragement, sympathy, and support during my study. 11l ABSTRACT In recent years, Vietnam has gained impressive growth from the renovation in 1986. The average growth of more than 7.5 percent has ranked Vietnam into the fastest growth group in the world. This is a result of the process of transition from centrally planned economy to market economy.
The key element of this success is the openness of the economy and trade has expanded its role in stimulating growth in Vietnam. In deed, exports have been contributing to economic growth, and Vietnamese exports are quite similar to those of five other ASEAN developing countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. Thus, it is useful to investigate the relationship between exports and economic growth in these countries through the findings of determinants of economic growth. By using both descriptive and econometric method, the study examines the determinants of growth with an emphasis on the role of exports on economic growth in the ASEAN-5 developing countries during the period of 1986-2001.
The econometric method is based on the neoclassical model, using panel data of five countries during sixteen years. The empirical findings reveal that capital; labor force, export growth, spending on education, and external debts are determinants of growth. In which, external debt and spending on education have negative effect on growth while the rest has positive impact on economic growth. In relation with the role of exports, the study has found that exports have positive effect on economic growth in these countries, and this result is consistent with those in previous studies.
It also suggests that the opened-door policy in these countries has been effective and it should be considered carefully in order to contribute more to economic growth. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS C ertifi cation Acknowledgements Abstract Tables of contents Lists oftables Lists of figures Acronyms CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION I. Scope and limitation of the study. Methodology and data.
Structure of the thesis. 4 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW ILl Definitions. Keys ian Growth. The neoclassical growth model.
The endogenous growth theory. The traditional theory of international trade and development. Effects of Exports on Growth. 37 CHAPTER III: AN OVERVIEW OF ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE AND EXPORTS IN ASEAN-5 DEVELOPING COUNTRIES III.
A background of five ASEAN developing countries. Export performance and sources of export growth of ASEAN-5 in recent years. Economic growth in ASEAN-5. Export Performance of ASEAN-5 in the studying period.
Sources of Export Growth. Vietnamese exports in the studying period. Vietnam trade performance after applying 'renovation' policy. The commodity composition of exports.
Main trading partners ofVietnam. 55 CHAPTER IV: DETERMINANTS OF ECONOMIC GROWTH IN ASEAN-5 DEVELOPING COUNTRIES IV. 71 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS V. Suggestions for further study.
77 Bibliography Vll · LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Determinants of economic growth Table 3.1: Growth rate of export in ASEAN-5, 1986-2001 Table 3.3: Vietnam: Commodity composition of exports, 1990-2001 Table 4.1 Description of variables Table 4.2: Test for rank correlation between export growth and GDP growth LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Employment and foreign exchange effects of export expansion Graph 3.1: GDP growth rate of ASEAN-5 Chart 3. Market's share ofVietnamese exports, 1995 Chart 3. Market's share ofVietnamese exports, 2001 Vlll ACRONYMS AFTA ASEAN Free Trade Area ASEAN Association of South East Asian Nations ADF Augmented Dickey Fuller CMEA Council for Mutual Economic Assistance FDI Foreign Direct Investment GDP Gross Domestic Products GSO General Statistics Office SUR Seemingly Unrelated Regression us United States USD United States Dollar VECM Vector-Error-Correction Model VND Vietnamese Dong WDI World Development Indicators IX CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1. PROBLEM STATEMENT Vietnam had made its unification more than ten years before it started the economic reform to take the economy out of the crisis in 1986 (Hoang, 1996).
Vietnam's economic reform or 'doi moi' (innovation) has been done for more than sixteen years and it gets many successes. Gross Domestic Products (GDP) increases more than twice in the past ten years, economic structure changes in the right direction of reducing the ratio of agriculture over GDP and increasing the ratio of industry and service over GDP (Nguyen, 2002). From the beginning of innovation, Vietnam has gained a considerable growth with the average of GDP of 7.55 per cent per year (Vo, 2002). In which, the year 1995 is considered as the most successful for growth performance with the growth rate of GDP reaching 9.
Then, there is a bit slowdown in GDP growth rate. It is only 5.8 per cent in 1998 and 1999, respectively. However, it increases in 2000 and 2001 with the growth rate of 6. As a result of the economic growth, the living standard is improved dramatically (Nguyen, 2002).
In accordance with GDP growth, the 2002 World Bank report shows that between 1986 and 2001, exports have increased by an average of around twenty three per cent leading to an expansion in sectors that employ large number of people, combined with a stable macroeconomic environment and reforms for favorable investment climate, it generated exceptional growth in GDP (World Bank, 2002). Not only the total volume of exports increases, the structure of exports has changed as well. The Vietnamese economic performance as well as the export performance is so good in the 1 difficult circumstance of collapse of trade relations with Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) and the fall of aid from Soviet Bloc. When economists consider the effect of export growth on economic growth, there are two groups of thought.
First, Krueger argues that economic growth could be gained when the country experienced growth of export earnings (Krueger, 2000). Other writers such as Feder (1983), Nidugala (1994), Sun and Parikh (1996), Al-Yousif (1999), and Lloyd, Morrissey, and Osei (200 1) also find that there is a positive effect of export growth on economic growth. Additionally, Nidugala finds an interesting point that manufactured exports have significant influence on GDP growth for the case of India. This shows that economic structure also has a role in the development process of India.
In contrast, Raul Prebish and Hans Singer argued that not only primary exports face sluggish growth of demand, but over time prices of these commodities will fall in the world market, so they do not agree with an positive effect of exports on economic growth in long run (Gillis and al, 1996). Another author finding the same conclusion is Sheerey with the study of cross-section of 53 countries in the world. After examining the role of exports on economic growth, he concludes that exports have not got the clear role in economic growth (Sheerey, 1992). Siddique and Selvanathan agree with this idea when they do their research for Malaysia and find that their results do not give any evidence to support the export-led economic growth hypothesis.
They also indicate that for the case of Malaysia manufactured exports as the same as total exports have no role in economic growth (Siddique and Selvanathan, 1998). In Vietnam, there is a debate on the role of exports on economic growth. While many authors such as Nguyen (1997), Nguyen (2002), and Vo (2002) have suggested a policy with more concentration on exports, Nguyen (2000) shows that imports of machinery have increased from 21.8 percent in 1991 to 28 percent in 1999, and this has contributed in pushing domestic production and thus, growth. So, it is necessary to push this kind of imports (Nguyen, 2000).
2 So, this paper aims at investigating the role of exports on economic growth, and through which to find out what are determinants of economic growth in Vietnam from the year of innovation 1986 to 2001, also reference with other ASEAN developing countries. OVERALL OBJECTIVES The study concentrates on economic dimensions of economic growth and exports, as well as other determinants of growth in Vietnam. It is envisaged that this will correlate the export growth rate, investment, human capital, which are necessary conditions for sustainable economic growth. The overall objectives of this study will therefore be to identify and qualify, through economic investigation det~rminants of growth, the relationship between export growth and economic growth, and last suggest trade policies stimulating further economic growth.
The study has two specific objectives, with an emphasis on the later one: 1. What are determinants of GDP growth in ASEAN-5 developing countries including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Is there a positive effect of the growth rate of exports on the growth rate of GDP in ASEAN developing countries during the period of 1986-2001? 1. SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY The year 1986 is considered as the initial year of totally innovative in Vietnam since the innovation in the mid-1986.
From 1986, data available is not sufficient enough to econometric model and thus lead to unreliable results. So, to increase the sample size the study chooses additional four ASEAN economies including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. These countries are chosen because of two reasons. The first reason is that all these countries are located in Southeast Asia and are members of AFTA.
The second reason is that the economic background of these countries is quite similar each other. These countries are pursuing regional and international integration with greater openness of the 3 economies as well as trade liberalization. They all first develop by industrialization of import- substitution strategy and then shifted into export-oriented strategy (Bende-Nabende, 1999). For limitation, since some data are missed and not available, the thesis just focuses on some main determinants of growth.
The study also just focuses on visible exports while it ignore invisible exports due to the reason of data constraint. Another limitation is some data are not available, so it will reduce the observations of regression model. METHODOLOGY AND DATA Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used to analyze, however econometric method is used as the main methodology. The econometric method will be used to analyze the impacts of exports on economic growth in ASEAN developing countries and Vietnam.
It will investigate how export growth can affect on economic growth in these countries. Most of data come from CD-Rom named World Development Indicator of the World Bank group.